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People and Politics by Patrick Roberts

Senior New York Times writer launches hit job on Irish economic recovery -- ‘Everywhere..abandoned housing projects rot, waist high weeds sprouting’

Posted on Wednesday, January 02, 2013 at 05:50 AM
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Horses in a field in front of a new house which has been left unfinished in Co Leitrim. 
If the Irish government were hoping for a positive spin as they take over the presidency of Europe for six months they will be disappointed with the New Year’s Day hit job  article in The New York Times.

In an article entitled 'From Ireland to Greece: The New Fiscal Reality' in the print edition of the newspaper, Suzanne Daley, former National Editor and now a senior foreign correspondent, had nothing good to say.

“In Ireland government austerity measures have pummeled the fragile economy with cuts in service and higher taxes,” she writes.

“Everywhere, it seems abandoned housing projects rot, waist-high weeds sprouting from the cracks on the sidewalks.

“The proportion of households without a working adult is among the highest in the European Union and thousands of Irish continue to leave the country in search of work.

“Yet, the government, under pressure from its creditors, undertook another round of cuts last year, including its programs for children. At the same time it increased property taxes.”

The Times notes that despite European efforts to turn things around, “They have little to show for it in Ireland.”

Certainly not the type of vote of confidence the Irish were looking for at the beginning of the New Year from the world’s leading newspaper! See more: Irish Economy

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23 comments

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seamus60 | Feb 17, 2013, 05:31 PM EST
Wonder if those horses are still there or on an ASDA shelf.

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mikeyjoe | Jan 04, 2013, 11:34 AM EST
The NYT article is not a hit job. It is just reporting what is actually going on in Ireland. Estates are vacant. Workers have had their salaries reduced. There are new taxes on water, septic systems and property. People are turning off their heat because they cannot afford oil. You cannot spin that Irish Central.

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seamus60 | Jan 03, 2013, 06:36 PM EST
Lets not forget all those who agreed to the origional bail out with nothing more than a promise to reinstate lending to small business`s from the banks. Just something else that never materialised. Not a soul even thought to off set all this money to something like negative equity that now enslaves so many.

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Will Hamilton | Jan 03, 2013, 02:57 PM EST
The article has it spot on. Ireland is a kip run by small minded little villagers as it has been since 1922. The number of beggars you can pass in a day is incredible. Soup kitchens have started to open around the country. All this because the liars at the top knew they were far smarter than the overpaid idiots in the government. First we got the bill for child rape by the Catholic Church and then the bill for the criminals in charge of banks and their property speculator customers.

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cillowen | Jan 02, 2013, 11:56 PM EST
Anglo Ireland is the problem that keeps it dysfunctional split in accordance with colluder troika planning.

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curtisjohnson | Jan 02, 2013, 09:22 PM EST
You can expect the New York times to reflexively attack any form of austerity as being counter to its hardling Keynsian values. That said, the problems in Ireland originate with the anglo-oriented Dublin establishment and their industrial estate Ireland outlook. The forced bailout by Irish taxpayers of the international creditors of internation banks is the primary cause of the need for austerity in the first place.

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McNamara31 | Jan 02, 2013, 06:32 PM EST
The Irish Independent reported that 70,000 of young Irish have left for work in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Britain, the US and Germany -- up from 46,000 the previous year. Sad times indeed.

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Searlit | Jan 02, 2013, 02:56 PM EST
Those poor abandoned horses look so lost. The Mr. Ed comment is funny, though. May we all, on both sides of the Atlantic, have a better new year.

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hollabackgurl | Jan 02, 2013, 02:41 PM EST
Ireland isn't a meritocracy, it's a patriarchy. It's ruling class inherit their positions and hand them on. Its ruling class aren't equipped for the 21 century. They stand by as the best and brightest are forced to emigrate. This will continue until the ruling class is opposed and removed.

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eiriamach | Jan 02, 2013, 12:59 PM EST
Patrick Roberts, can you, or anyone else here (this is an open question) say just what "Irish economic recovery" means? I mean, what IS the government's plan, if it's not, as NY Times writers like Krugman and Daley explain, simply a brutal austerity program?

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CitizenWhy | Jan 02, 2013, 12:48 PM EST
Economists recognize the fundamentally fraudulent nature of the Irish recovery. The rosy GNP numbers are due to foreign corporations using Ireland as a place to set up a regional headquarters for selling goods and service to Europe. That way the corporations pay the low Irish corporate tax rather than the high European corporate tax. Goods may or may not actually arrive in Ireland, but if they do, they are then shipped out to European buyers. This corporate tax shelter trick produces very few jobs in Ireland except in the case of some computer software companies.

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FastEddy | Jan 02, 2013, 12:40 PM EST
The truth hurts? This is what the Irish deserve for allowing your politicians increase your taxes, decrease your net worth, make a worse mess of your already hosed up central planning driven economy ... and until YOU in media tell your readers about the truth that Irish government can not and will not ever fix it, YOU have no one to blame but yourselves. You can't blame the willing dupes in your trade unionist movements because they have been misinformed by YOU. You can't blame Irish private and public businesses because they are trying to create jobs as fast as they can despite YOU. You can't blame your banks because your government has successfully co-opted by your government AND by YOU.

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Portia_O'Neill | Jan 02, 2013, 10:55 AM EST
The title of Patrick Robert's piece could apply to conditions in various neighborhoods of New York City in the aftermath of hurricane Sandy too.

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Leitrim666 | Jan 02, 2013, 10:26 AM EST
I can't find anything in the NYT article that is incorrect. Maybe Patrick Roberts thinks that they should only print articles that are based on lies and propaganda. We've had enough of that, which is why Ireland's bankrupt. As for the New York Times being the world's leading newspaper, that's rubbish. The Leitrim Observer is.

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Silling | Jan 02, 2013, 10:18 AM EST
That's Mr Ed in the fore ground telling the camera man in dyslexic to KCUF FFO

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